Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Steyn Kundizeza has been revealed as the winner of the 2026 Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story, ‘The Blue Fighter’, published by The Shallow Tales Review in 2025.
The Caine Prize for African Writing is an international literary prize for short fiction by African writers. For more than two decades, the prize has championed and celebrated African writers and their work, bringing short stories from the continent and its diaspora to readers around the world. Its mission is to encourage and amplify the richness and diversity of African writing through its award, programmes and partnerships.
‘The Blue Fighter’ follows Tinashe, a young boy whose family falls into financial hardship after his father leaves his profession to pursue his passion for building fish tanks. As money becomes increasingly scarce, Tinashe’s mother is forced to choose between her family’s survival and her husband’s dream.
In his words, Simbarashe Kundizeza said:
“Winning the Caine Prize means a great deal to me. I’ve been writing for several years, often without knowing where the work would take me, just fitting it around everything else in my life. To have a story drawn from my own experiences recognised at this level makes all those everyday compromises feel worthwhile. Most of all, it gives me a little more belief that I can keep making room for this life as a writer.”
Chaired by journalist Bola Mosuro, with writer Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, curator and writer Orsod Malik, South African writer and academic Siphiwo Mahala, and Ugandan-British playwright and performer Sheila Atim MBE serving as judges, Kundizeza emerged as the winner from a shortlist of five writers selected from 407 entries submitted from 27 African countries.
Simbarashe Steyn Kundizeza takes home a £10,000 cash prize, while the other shortlisted writers receive £500 each.
Simbarashe Steyn Kundizeza is a Zimbabwean writer based in Harare. His debut novel manuscript, Freelance, won the 2024 Island Prize for Debut African Fiction. A finalist in the 2018 Africa Book Club Short Story Competition, Kundizeza’s short fiction has appeared in Transition Magazine (Indiana University Press), The Shallow Tales Review, and the anthology The Wrong Patient and Other Stories from Africa (Aalvent Media, 2018). He is an alumnus of the 2025 LOATAD Black Atlantic Residency in Ghana and serves as an Associate Editor at African Writer Magazine, where he contributes to shaping and amplifying contemporary African voices.
Click here to read ‘The Blue Fighter’.
Congratulations, Simbarashe Steyn Kundizeza!
